Broken Made New

John 20:1-18 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary
Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the
tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the
other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken
the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then
Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two
were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb
first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there,
but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into
the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had
been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a
place by itself. Then the other disciple, who
reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet
they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the
dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.

But Mary stood weeping outside the
tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels
in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and
the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said
to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid
him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing
there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman,
why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the
gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where
you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!”
She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means
Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet
ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending
to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary
Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she
told them that he had said these things to her.

Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! Halleluiah!

A couple of Easter
jokes: Ok kids – help me out here: What do you get when you throw boiling water
down a rabbit hole? Hot Cross Bunnies! (If you don’t understand this, please ask
someone who may)

A bored young man named Fred decided life would be more fun if he
had a pet. So he went to the pet store
and told the owner that he wanted to buy an unusual pet. After some discussion,
he finally bought a talking centipede, (100-legged bug), which came in a little
white box to use for his house.

He took the box back home, found a
good spot for the box, and decided he would start off by taking his new pet to
church with him. So Fred asked the centipede in the box, “Would you like
to go to church with me today – it’s Easter Sunday? We will have a good
time.” But there was no answer from his new pet named Pete. This bothered Fred
a bit, but he waited a few minutes and then asked again, “How about going
to church with me and receive Easter blessings?” But again, there was no
answer from his new friend and pet. So he waited a few minutes more, thinking
about the situation.

Fred decided to invite Pete one
last time. This time he put his face up against the centipede’s house and
shouted, “Hey, in there! Would you like to go to church with me and learn
about God and Jesus and Easter?” This time, a little voice came out of the
box, “I heard you the first time! I’m putting on my shoes!”

Sometimes our responses, like Pete’s, are slow. Sometimes our responses are unheard. Sometimes we just don’t know what to believe or what to say. And sometimes that is true with our faith. I believe, help my unbelief. These words are not only found on our own tongues, but were recorded in the gospel according to Matthew 9:14-24. Here we learn about a man who had a son possessed by a spirt. He brought his son to Jesus’ disciples and the disciples told Jesus they had failed. Jesus asked for the boy to be brought to him.

The man then asked Jesus to cast out the spirit; “if he could” and Jesus replied: “if you can believe – all things are possible for those who believe.” The man then cried out “I believe; help my unbelief!”

My Easter confession is the same. This may be true for you as well? Perhaps it is helpful to look at our lives not only as a journey, but as a faith journey. Where has God led? Where is God leading? I am not sure I trust those who have never had a second of doubt about their faith or question their faith or theology. Doubters have always been with us – just ask Thomas. I believe, help my unbelief. Although I have dedicated my life to the church, I understand the very real struggle of belief in the Easter story and the reality of Jesus’ life. I believe, help my unbelief. Even as the woman witnessed what happened at the tomb, the other disciples did not believe. So I am not here today to ask you to believe anything you are not quite ready to believe. That is your journey to seek and to follow as you are ready.

Episcopal priest,
Jim Friedrich wrote the following (Christian Century, 4/10/19) At the entrance
to Jerusalem’s Church of All Nations, next to the Garden of Gethsemane, there
is a sign warning every visitor: NO EXPLANATIONS INSIDE THE CHURCH.

Friedrich notes
that: “This was intended to discourage talkative tour guides from disturbing
the church’s prayerful ambience with shouted lectures, but it has always struck
me as very good advice for preachers on Easter Sunday.” And I agree.

We preachers are
often tempted to mount a defense of the resurrection. However, when we do so we
tame a dangerous mystery into a manageable—and rather harmless—assumption. The
Easter story is more about the transformative presence of the living Christ in
our lives right now – even as we live with our doubts and ‘what ifs’.

As Friedrich
wrote: “Easter Sunday is for proclamation, not explanation. It is a time to
meet the One who changes everything. The central question of Easter is not ‘What
happened to Jesus way back then?’ but rather ‘Where is Jesus now—for us?’ Or
even more strikingly, as theologian Gareth Jones asks, ‘When is
Jesus? When is Jesus for us?’ Easter becomes not a matter of our
questioning the resurrection but of allowing the resurrection to question us.
Who are we now, and what must we become, in the light of the risen Christ?

So I invite you,
believers and seekers, seekers and doubters; doubters questioners, questioners
and disbelievers, disbelievers and believers, to embrace the Easter experience
and consent – or at least to give a nod to its transformative effects. In order
to connect the risenness of Jesus with the risenness of us and all creation,
there are two fundamental themes: Easter is now! – not just 2000+ years ago. And, resurrection has consequences!

Since it only
occurs once a year, Easter Sunday is sometimes mistaken for a commemorative anniversary
of a past event. The resurrection, although breaking into history on a specific
temporal, earthly occasion, is not the property of the past. Friedrich reflects
that: “As God’s future showing itself in our present, resurrection belongs to
all times and seasons. Jesus is alive, still showing up as a transfiguring
presence in a world fraught with absences. Jesus is not over, and his story is
not over. It will only be completed in the divinization of the cosmos, when God
is in all and all are in God”. Now,
there’s a statement! I believe. Help my unbelief.

Easter isn’t
something we remember. It’s something we live and breathe in our daily living,
in our breathing in and out, in our waking and sleeping, in our going out and
our returning.

The walk through
Lent and Holy Week brings us to the cross of Christ with the reality that resurrection
has consequences. Friedrich instructs us that: “The resurrection is more than
an idea we talk about or believe propositionally. It’s something we become,
something we ‘prove’ in the living of our stories. Rowan Williams describes it
this way:

the believer’s life is a testimony to the risen-ness of Jesus: he or she demonstrates that Jesus is not dead by living a life in which Jesus is the never-failing source of affirmation, challenge, enrichment and enlargement—a pattern, a dance, intelligible as a pattern only when its pivot and heart become manifest. The believer shows Jesus as the center of his or her life.

In Orthodox
iconography of the resurrection, Jesus is never by
himself. He is always depicted taking the dead by the hand and
pulling them out of their own tombs. Christ’s hand snatching us from death is a
vivid image.

But the things
that are killing us exert a powerful gravity. We sag under the weight of our
despair, we resist the hand that pulls us upward [and cry “Why have you
forsaken me?”] Nevertheless, Christ persists. God through Christ came to save
us from our least selves. That’s the gift—and the challenge—of the
resurrection, and it applies to our common life as well as to our private
selves. The first disciples, so scattered and shamed by the events of the
Passion, made this perfectly clear when their broken and bewildered community
was restored to life. And so it is for all of us who follow.” Resurrection is broken made new.

Over the Lenten
season several of us gathered for a discussion series entitled Sitting in Darkness. Over this six week
period we met a variety of people who spoke briefly about their own journeys to
the cross – their own pain and times of darkness and death. Many spoke of finding church in the hope that
church would remove the emotional and spiritual pain they were
experiencing. One was hoping coming to
church would be like being given an epidermal and the pain would be blocked. Another spoke in the hope of church being an
anesthesia to make the pain disappear.

By sitting in their own darkness (often with another present0, each one found a different truth. It is not running from pain that brings relief – it is walking through it – as painful as that may be – it is walking through the pain that brings us to the other side, where we find new birth, new life, new understanding, new faith – each time brings us closer to a deeper faith and the understanding of the power of resurrection. New birth, new hearing, new vision, new thinking, new heart.

Friedrich assures
us that: “Resurrection is about the healing and restoration of wounded and
severed relationships: relationships between God and humanity, between human
persons and, ultimately, among all the elements of creation. An Orthodox
theologian, Patriarch Athenagoras, puts the case in the widest possible terms: ‘The
Resurrection is not the resuscitation of a body; it is the beginning of the
transfiguration of the world.’

You! are that
evidence in the world by your words and your actions. You – each of you. Without a doubt – you are loved by God. It is
a love beyond our wildest imaginings. God wants the best for each of us. God desires us to choose life every time – no
matter what the situation we may be wrestling with.

We may not think
we deserve God’s love because we feel broken and unbelieving. In one way or another we are all broken. In his song Anthem, Leonard Cohen reminds us that even in our brokenness God
finds a way to us: “Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That is how the light gets in.”

God wants us to choose what is going to bring
us to new life. Even those moments we
believe are the darkest of our lives can lead to new life – death of a loved
one – parent or spouse or friend or child; a divorce; the loss of a job we love
– all of these dark events can lead us to resurrection. We may not see it or know it at the time –
the disciples didn’t either on the first Easter morning. They had to live through their own pain of
betrayal and desertion and witnessing Jesus’ death on the cross – living with
that reality and grief – before they could understand the resurrection. It is a shocking story and reality. I believe, help my unbelief.

You are the living
embodiment of that reality. You are the
evidence of God in the world. And within
community, we come together to support, care for, love, encourage and challenge
one another.

May you embrace
how much God love you – yes, each of us – believer, doubter, seeker,
questioner, disbeliever. When you go
from this place go and share the good news of the Easter story by your blessed
lives. As Jim Palmer(Clergy Coaching
Network) reminds us: “Telling people that God loves them is good theology. Showing people that you love them transforms
the world.” Christ is Risen. He is risen indeed. Amen.